I was talking with a magician friend of mine yesterday about dove acts, and he suggested that my lack of appreciation for them is probably tied to my never having seen a really good one. Recognizing that he might be right, I turn to the hive mind of Genii for recommendations on the very best dove acts so that I can calibrate my expectations appropriately. The few I've seen have all been nearly identical and also...well, corny is the only word that fits. So I'm really hoping to see one that totally changes my mind.

You need to understand the context and evolution of "the dove act" to appreciate a lot of what makes acts good or bad. Obviously that's a luxury most lay audiences don't have and magicians are phenomenally bad at conveying the history and context of the art which is why dove acts are generally cliched and uninspiring. In a nutshell (and knowing how controversial some of these comments will be) what you need to know is...

Channing Pollock is basically the father of "the dove act" - at the time he was revolutionary and unique but now because he has been copied so much he looks like the ultimate cliche (much as when watching Elvis or the Beatles now you can't appreciate why they were so mold-breaking at the time) though his technical skills and slickness is legendary. He was very good.

Lance Burton / Joseph Gabriel / James Dimmare / Shimada (and many others) did dove acts that are really best described as "Channing Pollock tribute acts" - they are technically proficient performances of the material but there's really no innovation or evolution of the material. It's like watching very very good Frank Sinatra tribute acts.

Tomsoni / MacRonay (and plenty of other performers in Europe) do spoof dove acts that have a reasonable level of technical skill but play the pastiche; you can watch those acts completely cold and be entertained but the subtleties of most of their jokes are lost if you aren't reasonably aware of the tropes and icons of dove magic performance

Greg Frewin / Marko Karvo / Charlie Mag / Darcy Oake / Dan Sperry / Jason Byrne / Jonathan David Bass are the key names in contemporary dove magic and each have their own twists they have put on the genre (Greg was very modern, Marko is incredibly slick & European, Charlie is very modern-artistic, Darcy is closest thing we have to a rockstar, Sperry plays with contrast and expectations, Byrne does classics in a modern classical way, J-D-B is a bad-boy dove magician) however every single one of these performers is wearing basically the same style of jacket, waves a lot of silk hankies around and throws things in the air whilst fumbling with the other hand. They are all great people but fundamentally what they are doing is (technically) no different to what Channing did 60 years ago so you will always have that nagging feeling that what you're watching is the magic equivalent of someone who's invented a really new high-tech steam train so if you're ambivalent about dove magic now don't expect to see anything revolutionary.

Most genre's of magic have been radically altered by "Asian magicians" but whilst i've seen a fair few dove acts from that part of the world there's really not been any innovation on the scale that they have influenced close-up or card manipulation.

Susan Arendt wrote:The few I've seen have all been nearly identical and also...well, corny is the only word that fits.

What is it about dove acts that you consider to be "corny"?

The few that I'd seen until you folks made your excellent recommendations were unimaginative and derivative. A guy in an oversized jacket made birds appear one after the other, and that's basically it. While I don't doubt for a moment that requires a great deal of proficiency, it can feel like old hat.

Tom Moore wrote:You need to understand the context and evolution of "the dove act" to appreciate a lot of what makes acts good or bad. Obviously that's a luxury most lay audiences don't have and magicians are phenomenally bad at conveying the history and context of the art which is why dove acts are generally cliched and uninspiring. In a nutshell (and knowing how controversial some of these comments will be) what you need to know is...

Channing Pollock is basically the father of "the dove act" - at the time he was revolutionary and unique but now because he has been copied so much he looks like the ultimate cliche (much as when watching Elvis or the Beatles now you can't appreciate why they were so mold-breaking at the time) though his technical skills and slickness is legendary. He was very good.

Lance Burton / Joseph Gabriel / James Dimmare / Shimada (and many others) did dove acts that are really best described as "Channing Pollock tribute acts" - they are technically proficient performances of the material but there's really no innovation or evolution of the material. It's like watching very very good Frank Sinatra tribute acts.

Tomsoni / MacRonay (and plenty of other performers in Europe) do spoof dove acts that have a reasonable level of technical skill but play the pastiche; you can watch those acts completely cold and be entertained but the subtleties of most of their jokes are lost if you aren't reasonably aware of the tropes and icons of dove magic performance

Greg Frewin / Marko Karvo / Charlie Mag / Darcy Oake / Dan Sperry / Jason Byrne / Jonathan David Bass are the key names in contemporary dove magic and each have their own twists they have put on the genre (Greg was very modern, Marko is incredibly slick & European, Charlie is very modern-artistic, Darcy is closest thing we have to a rockstar, Sperry plays with contrast and expectations, Byrne does classics in a modern classical way, J-D-B is a bad-boy dove magician) however every single one of these performers is wearing basically the same style of jacket, waves a lot of silk hankies around and throws things in the air whilst fumbling with the other hand. They are all great people but fundamentally what they are doing is (technically) no different to what Channing did 60 years ago so you will always have that nagging feeling that what you're watching is the magic equivalent of someone who's invented a really new high-tech steam train so if you're ambivalent about dove magic now don't expect to see anything revolutionary.

Most genre's of magic have been radically altered by "Asian magicians" but whilst i've seen a fair few dove acts from that part of the world there's really not been any innovation on the scale that they have influenced close-up or card manipulation.

Thank you so much for this well thought out and expansive answer. I very much appreciate your insight and enjoyed reading this a great deal.

That link worked perfectly well when I tested it after posting but is now blocked by what sure looks like some sort of scam site. So, check out the photo gallery at her web site, celesteevans.com , if interested.

Photo was of some interest actually as it showed a magician not using the "oversized jacket" gag.

To me you cannot get any better than James Dimmare he works in the style as Channing Pollock who is one of the very best. I think Channing helped a lot of up and coming magicians start up and he heavily influenced Dimmares act. I love Lance Burton too but i just remember seeing Dimmare doing his act on the Paul Daniels Magic Show and he blew me away!.